DLA Piper pushes green practices for a sustainable environment

In Dubai last week, global legal firm DLA Piper held its own Green Week, concentrating on four areas - energy, water, travel, and procurement. These all make up the official ISO 14001 certification, which the company has been awarded.

To get the certification, it has taken measures such as asking staff to turn off lights and computers at the end of the day, reduce paper use by 2% per person, and collect all items that can be recycled after usage.

'Global organisations such as ours, with 3,700 lawyers worldwide across 64 offices in 25 countries, need to consider how their actions affect their clients, their employees, the community and the environment,' says Wafaa Tarnowska, Business Executive in DLA Piper's Dubai office.

Sustaining the environment

DLA Piper is also trying to reduce carbon emission, with the aim being to achieving carbon neutrality by offsetting business trips abroad.

'We are offsetting 100% of our 2007 carbon emissions by investing in a wind farm in the Jilin Province of China, as well as in a project in Nicaragua that seeks to make artisans' brick kilns more efficient and less reliant on fuel from unsustainable forestry practices.'

'In 2008, we plan to reduce business air travel by 1% per person below 2007 figures and continue to offset the carbon emissions we generate,' Tarnowska says.

To achieve that, the company is encouraging staff to consider teleconferencing and videoconferencing instead of travelling when planning meetings.

Empowering Emirati women

Environment is not the only beneficiary in DLA Piper's strategy. The empowerment of Emirati women also plays a big role in the company's plans. The first step will be in June through a project titled 'Women in the workplace'.

The project will give young Emirati women practical training to prepare them for work in private institutions (currently most working Emirati women for the government) or to start their own small businesses.

DLA Piper is partnering with Tawteen, a governmental program that was created to lead more UAE nationals into the private sector. The project is funded equally by DLA Piper and Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank.

Also within the education space, the company has sponsored the Shariah and Law Team of the UAE University in the Jessup Moot Competition this year.

Now in its 49th year, the Philip Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition is the world's largest competition that simulates court proceedings, with participants from over 500 law schools in more than 80 countries.

'The competition is a simulation of a fictional dispute between countries before the International Court of Justice, the judicial organ of the United Nations,' explains Tarnowska.

Tarnowsky stresses that these CSR initiatives don't pay back financially, but show that DLA Piper is giving back to the community it operates within, creating a win-win situation where everybody gets something.

Currently CSR programmes take around a third of her time, with the rest of it being devoted to her 'day job' of recruitment, but as it becomes more important, she hopes that the company will reach a point where it is a full-time job.

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